September 20, 2005

Space, the final frontier...

NASA has announced we will again try for the moon.* We hope to return by 2020.

President Kennedy, embarrassed that the Soviets were kicking our technological ass, decreed we would get to the moon in a decade. My man Armstrong planted his space Nikes in July of 1969 on the surface of the moon. In less than 10 years, we sent the first Americans into space, we designed and built a rocket that got us to the moon and back several times. We created lunar modules to shuttle us from the rocket to the surface of the moon were we had cars to drive around in.

Americans were able to do this with slide rules and computers with less power than a $1.00 solar calculator. We got to the moon with analog gauges and the technological equivalent of a 1965 Corvair. We accomplished all of this in less than 10 years.

We have been there before. We had to create the technology to get there. We have been traveling space more or less successfully for 45 years. Why will it take 15 years to get back to the moon? Dust off the Saturn rocket, upgrade the electronics, drop in a new communications package and go.

Lets pick a new group of astronauts with the Right Stuff. To follow NASAs current timetable, they will have to be in elementary school. The private sector could have a guy on the moon for half the cost in half the time.